


Man That You Fear

by minute0fdecay



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Anal Fingering, Asphyxiation, Choking, Death Row, Double Agents, Dreams vs. Reality, Drug Use, Eventual Relationships, Fake AH Crew, Fluff and Angst, Graphic Description, Illegal Practices, Insanity, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Manipulation, Masturbation, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Mentions of Suicide, Multi, Plot, Plot Devices, Recreational Drug Use, Rehabilitation, Rimming, S&M, Sedation, Self-Reflection, Sensory Deprivation, Sexual Content, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Tranquilizers, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 17:23:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4357829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minute0fdecay/pseuds/minute0fdecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why do you feel compelled to kill strangers?”</p><p>“Because it’s a damn sight easier than killing people I know.”</p><p>**<br/>NOTE: The most recent chapter is just an update and not an actual chapter - will be deleted when I upload the next chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I will say right off the bat that this fic will be dealing with sensitive issues. There are some parts that I have experience with, but I know this doesn't make me the authority on these things. So if you're not comfortable with mental health issues, mental health institutions and such, maybe this fic isn't for you! I'm hoping that I've dealt with these things in the best way possible. If you think something needs changing, please just leave a (preferably nicely-worded!) comment and I'll edit as best as I can.  
> I hope you enjoy reading! <3

“Why do you feel compelled to kill strangers?”

“Because it’s a damn sight easier than killing people I know.”

***

Ryan knew that when he became a gun-for-hire, if confronted with a situation where the police could viably make an arrest, he’d be the one to take the fall. It was sort of in the contract. It was often why people hired out guns – to have someone to take the rap should something go wrong.

Ryan knew that something in his head didn’t quite work the way it was supposed to. Because he didn’t just kill when he was getting paid. Like how some people needed a cigarette when stressed, or in need of relief, he killed. He knew he was supposed to feel remorse. He knew that eventually one day, he would get caught, and sat in the interview room at the North Ward Criminal Asylum, he was amazed he was left alive. They probably wanted to run tests on him. Find out what made him tick.

When he was arrested, it was after a bank heist that he was a part of, after being hired by a one Geoff Ramsey, leader of a crew that would stir fear in the hearts of those who had any common sense. Ryan knew that they wouldn’t outrun the cops this time, so instead of allowing the whole crew to get locked up, he acted as a diversion and got himself arrested. Which usually wouldn’t be a big deal, but what he didn’t know is that his DNA was tied to several murders throughout Los Santos. The LSPD had accidentally managed to capture one of the biggest threats to the city, but of course, in the papers, it was all meticulously planned out and was not an accident at all.

Luckily, Ryan would dream of the day he’d get caught. He had it all planned out. He’d plead insanity, because he was, he supposed, insane, that is. If he was clinically insane, he’d be right at home. If he wasn’t, well, he’d have to act weird for a few months while planning his escape.

His psych evaluation proved that he was clinically insane. “Subject to uncontrollable, compulsive behaviour,” is what he was, and Ryan believed it without question. He was told he was a sociopath, because of his lack of emotion, social conscience and moral compass. He was not surprised when he was told this, and the medical examiners were not surprised when he barely flinched when presented with the news.

It’s how he ended up with hands handcuffed behind him, in plain navy sweatpants with a plain navy t-shirt, a serial number crudely embroidered onto a little white square where the breast pocket ought to have been. He wasn’t aware of it, but a smirk was stuck to his face. Even as he answered.

“Why do you like killing so much, Ryan?” The doctor enquired.

“It’s relaxing. It’s just like working out. I’m in control. I can choose how I want to do it, how much power and effort to put into it.” Ryan spoke calmly, which made him a hell of a lot scarier than some of the current patients at North Ward.

“Do you feel like it’s something you _have_ to do?”

“Not always. I’m not constantly needing to kill. But when the urge arises… I have to do something about it. Do you know what I mean?”

The doctor said nothing. He wrote something down on the paper in front of him before putting them into a folder and standing up. Two guards either side of Ryan stood up. One held onto his arm as the other undid the handcuffs keeping him attached to the chair. They were securely back on his wrists before the doctor allowed him to be escorted out.

Ryan’s room was surprisingly un-asylum-like, in that it wasn’t padded from floor to ceiling. The first thing he noticed was that there were no sharp corners. The bedsheets were very thin, and a gross salmon colour. There was a chair in one corner of the room. There was a small chest of drawers for clothes and a bedside table. That was it. The door was made from a heavy metal and had a window in the top for constant surveillance.

“So this is my humble abode?” Ryan asked, feigning curiosity as he stepped into his room. Room 93.

“Make yourself at home,” one of the guards rumbled. “Your mentor will be around in a bit to say hello.”

***

“You really want _me_ to take this guy?” Gavin asked. “Isn’t he going to be a bit… severe?”

“If you don’t want him Gavin, then that’s fine, but I think you’ve got real potential – I think he’ll really connect with you. Your portfolio of work and reform is very impressive and I’d like to assign you to Haywood.”

“If you’re sure,” Gavin mumbled, trailing off, unable to complete his sentence. He’d just come over to Los Santos as a mental health mentor after a successful track record of working as a prison mentor in the UK. He wanted more of a challenge in Los Santos, but wasn’t expecting to be assigned to the most dangerous person there for his first case.

“Gavin, if you’re not happy, just say,” his superior urged – “But I really think this is the challenge you were describing in your job interview. Remember, if at any stage, it – _he_ – gets too much for you, we’ll take you off the case. Sound good?”

Gavin’s superior extended his hand.

“Fine.” Gavin said, taking the hand and shaking it. He didn’t want to admit that he was a little bit excited to take on Haywood – he’d never seen the guy, but even if he was physically terrifying, he was going to be fascinating to work with. There was something exhilarating about getting to pry into the mind of one of the most dangerous men alive at the moment.

***

Ryan sat by himself at dinnertime, which he was told was at nineteen hundred every day. He joined a queue of weary-looking shufflers, light plastic tray in his hand. Again, all its corners had been rounded off.

“What’s with all the guards?” he asked a scared looking woman stood in front of him. It took her a second to formulate her answer as her thoughts ran wild, amazed that someone had dared talk to her.

“You.” She said bluntly, before turning around again. He glanced at all the guards and did notice that all eyes were on him as opposed to his fellow inmates. He smiled at one of them. The guard noticeably gulped, and shifted his gaze to the floor.

Dinner wasn’t bad. A decent enough stew, cold enough water, tasty enough chocolate mousse for desert. It was all pleasant enough.

Ryan went back to his room after dinner. He was told it was movie night in the common room, and that he really ought to be there instead, but he still had his mentor to meet. People were too scared to argue with him.

Gavin decided not to go and see Ryan that night, leaving the hospital at around midnight.

Ryan, who had stayed up to meet this mentor of his, was not happy that he was lied to. He was told his mentor would be there to see him. Ryan did not like being lied to. He picked up the stupid little bedside table and smashed it up against the wall in anger. How dare they lie to him?

It earned him three nights in a room that was, in contrast to Room 93, very asylum-like. Padded from floor to ceiling, the bed being a mattress on the floor.

I’m only missing the straightjacket now, Ryan thought to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for brief mention of suicide / suicidal thoughts, and graphic description.

The first night Ryan spent in the “Comfort Room” was hell.

He was mad at the guards for throwing him in there, but for the first time in long, long time, he was mad at himself for acting out. His rational brain knows that for misbehaving, there are punishments, but he’s not had to suffer consequences for his actions before – until a few weeks ago when he was first arrested. For a few seconds, he blames himself for ending up in the Comfort Room and wishes he didn’t act out, but then the anger comes back and all he wants to do is get out and show them _just how angry he is_.

Had his fingernails not been clipped upon committal, he would have tried to claw at the stupid padding on the walls. He had tried, but instead burned his fingertips red raw on the material of the wall. He wasn’t the screaming type, but had come very close to being one. He threw himself at the wall as hard as he could, to see just how padded and soft it was, and had eventually tired himself out enough to sleep. He wasn’t sure if he had to spend three whole days in the Comfort Room, or just spend three nights there, but either way, he hated the place and wished he never had to see the place again.

At zero six hundred hours, North Ward security opened the door to his cell and escorted him out. He was told that at six hundred hours every morning, apart from Saturdays, he would be woken up and taken to the bathroom. He had ten minutes shower time, five minutes dressing time and then another ten minutes to comb his hair and brush his teeth before walking down to the dining room for breakfast, which was served between zero six thirty and zero seven thirty hours. Patients were encouraged to take time eating breakfast, as it was the most important meal of the day. It was also the time when a lot of patients took their medication. Ryan had been prescribed Risperdal, Anquil, and Zyprexa. He wasn’t convinced that drugs would fix him.

Shower time was awkward and degrading. He wasn’t sure if it was routine, or if it was just because of him, but he did not enjoy being watched by security as he stripped and washed himself under the lukewarm water. He could only imagine what the more paranoid patients would make of that, if it were a regular occurrence. He had been previously charged a fine for public indecency (he’d been caught giving someone head in what he thought were private woodlands – this had been years ago, but it was still on his record, hence the “anti-sexual deviancy” drug) but still, he did not enjoy being naked and wet in front of complete strangers.

When he was clean and dressed, he made his way down to the dining room for breakfast – which was today a selection of cereals, some toast and a bowl of porridge with a scoop of jam in it if you wanted. Ryan didn’t want. He ate his breakfast and took his tablets fairly quickly, but was not allowed to leave the dining room until zero seven thirty hours. He was told that usually, morning Game Time would follow breakfast, down in the common room, but because of Ryan’s behaviour, he would miss out on it and return to the Comfort Room until ten hundred hours. Ryan rolled his eyes. He felt like child being sent to the naughty step. Sure, he may have a few screws loose, but he was still an adult and wanted to be treated as such. He got angry and nearly lashed out at a guard, but saved it for when he was in the Comfort Room. He was thrown in and the door was closed behind him. The slat in the door opened up and guard spoke to him as he stood up after landing on the mattress.

“Doctor Free, your mentor, will be here shortly.”

“He better be!” Ryan yelled at the door, but his cry was answered with the slat slamming shut.

I fucking hate this place, he muttered to himself, taking off his sneakers and starting to pace. I’ll top myself, that’ll show them. Then they’ll be sorry-

Ryan caught himself mid-thought. He looked around him. There was no way, even if he wanted to, that he could kill himself in this room. He didn’t particularly want to, thinking about it.

“It would show them, though.” His subconscious told him.

I know it would, Ryan replied, but then I’d be dead and gone, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything. God, I’d like to wring those guards dry. Choke ‘em until their eyes pop out of their skulls…

Ryan was lost in the fantasy for a minute or two before there was a knock at the door. His head snapped upwards at the noise.

“Come in?” Ryan asked, not sure if he was in a position to make a decision about his visitor.

The door opened. Ryan was expecting an old, miserable-looking bespectacled man carrying a clipboard to walk in, but instead he was greeted by a young man, with unruly hair, a rather large nose and a goofy smile. He was carrying an iPad. He closed the door behind him and sat cross-legged on the floor, in front of Ryan.

Pretty, Ryan thought. He sat down and mirrored the doctor’s pose.

“Hi Ryan. I’m Gavin Free, and I’m going to be your mentor.”

Doctor Free had a British accent, an accent Ryan hadn’t heard for a long time. He liked it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Doctor Free,” Ryan drawled. Gavin stuck out his hand and Ryan took it. Ryan knew he had a good, firm handshake, and he could tell from the look on Gavin’s face that he was a little bit intimidated by it.

“Call me Gavin. I’m not here for formalities. I’m here to help you work through your problems and to get you out of here.”

“You really think I’m going to get out of here?” Ryan asked, stifling a laugh. “Do you even know why I’m here?”

Gavin shrunk back. “Ah yes, well… you never know. If you show signs of real improvement, you might get out. It’s possible.”

Ryan smirked. “I don’t think I’ll be getting out anytime soon.”

“That may be the case,” Gavin replied, “but don’t let that put you off.”

Ryan chuckled. The kid was so naïve. Ryan knew exactly what he was – evil, insane, lucky to have escaped the death penalty – he’d been cast the role of the villain. He knew exactly what he had done, and given the chance to go back and change it, he would not have changed a single second of all the atrocious things he’d done.

“Do you know what I was thinking about before you came in here?” Ryan asked.

“Uh… no, no I don’t, Ryan. Do you want to tell me?”

“I was thinking about how great it would be to choke one of the guards. To death, I mean. It would be so good, to wrap my hands around one of their necks and just, y’know, crush their windpipe. Watch ‘em struggle. It’s fantastic, having all that power. I can make it slow, watch their faces go red and purple, and eventually they go slack. Or I can make it quick and dramatic. I don’t like that so much. They flail about too much. When it’s slow, I like looking them in the eyes. They’re so scared of me, but they can’t look anywhere else. And slowly, but surely, the light in their eyes just… goes away. It’s so satisfying.” Ryan bit his lip, smiling at the image. “Write that down on your fucking iPad. I’m sure that’ll make interesting bedtime reading.”

Gavin was dumbfounded for a few seconds, not quite sure how to respond to Ryan’s tirade. Working with this man really is going to be a challenge, Gavin thought to himself.

“Do you think about that often?” Gavin asked.

“What? Choking someone? Or killing in general? I suppose. Today I’m angry that I’m stuck in here again. I’m missing out on Game Time. Boo-fucking-hoo. But I do fucking hate being in here.”

“How did you end up in here? You’ve barely been here a day.”

Ryan sighed. “I smashed my bedside table.”

“And why would you do a thing like that?”

“Because I was angry.”

“And why were you angry?”

“Jesus, what is this, fucking Twenty Questions or some shit?” Ryan snapped. “I was mad because I was told my mentor was coming around to see me. And you fucking didn’t, so I was lied to, and I don’t like being lied to.”

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I had a lot on my plate last night, and by the time I had finished, it was late. So late, I should have been out of the office for at least two hours.”

Ryan seethed silently. He stared Gavin down, but Gavin returned his gaze confidently, before turning to his iPad to look at his notes.

“Now, I will be with you twice a day for the foreseeable future – around this time of day, and mid-afternoon. If you show signs of improvement, then these visits might be cut down in the future. How does that sound?”

“Thank fucking Christ.” Ryan muttered.

“You’re pleased?”

“Someone sane that’ll actually talk to me and not treat me like a baby. Did you know I’m pretty smart? I’ve got a degree and everything.”

“I’ve seen. I’m impressed. That’s really impressive for someone from your background. In animation, was it? Why’d you give that up?”

“Because it’s a tough industry to crack and I was getting fed up of going to interview after interview and not getting anywhere. It’s when this whole thing started,” Ryan said, gesturing his hand to the room around him. “And now I’m here.”

Gavin smiled sympathetically. He was lucky that he’d had job security since day one. Although he couldn’t imagine snapping to the point where he resorted to murder. That thought didn’t need to bother him now – he had a job, and his job was to help people like James Ryan Haywood.

“What do you prefer to be called? James or Ryan? It says Ryan here, but if you’re looking to reinvent yourself-“

“James,” he spat, “no one’s called me that since my mother. Ryan is just fine. I’ve always been a Ryan, and always will be.”

“Alrighty then,” Gavin said, making a mental note. “Ryan it is.”

The rest of Gavin’s time with Ryan was spent going over the rules. No smoking in the building, he had to get smoking permission from the guards on duty. He had to be prompt for meals and cooperate at all times, lest he end up in the Comfort Room again. Strictly no physical contact with other patients or staff members, and any form of abuse will not be tolerated.

As their time drew to a close, Gavin pressed a button on his iPad.

“What’s that for?” Ryan asked.

“Just letting the guards know to come and let me out.”

“They’re not outside?” Ryan responded, sounding genuinely surprised.

“No. This is about trust, Ryan, and I don’t think that having those guards outside does anything to help us.”

Gavin got up to leave. Ryan stayed on the floor. As Gavin turned his back, Ryan spoke up.

“Doctor Free?”

“I’ve said, call me Gavin-“

“Gavin?”

“Yes, Ryan?”

“I’d like to choke you, one day.” Ryan declared, smirking. “Not to death. Just to see what you’d look like. I’d like to rough you up a bit.”

Gavin gulped and felt his face burn bright red.

“I’ll see you later, Ryan.” Gavin said, trying not to convey any fear in his voice.

***

“So, how was he?” Gavin’s superior asked when Gavin returned to the staff room. Another doctor shoved a cup of coffee in his hands – clearly they were all eagerly awaiting his return.

“Hard to get used to. He’s very… superhero villain. All smirks and creepy smiles. But I can tell it’s going to be interesting. Hard, challenging, probably disturbing, but interesting.”

“He didn’t threaten you? Or make any unsavoury remarks?”

Gavin paused.

“No, sir.”

***  
That night, Gavin dreamt of Ryan. He dreamt he was locked in the Comfort Room, with Ryan smiling an odd, genuinely friendly smile at him. They were both kneeling. Gavin craned his neck upwards as Ryan outstretched his hands.

“Yes?” Ryan asked.

“Yes.” Gavin replied.

Gavin woke up before Ryan’s hands found his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for bookmarking and your kudoses and comments, I hope this story plays out to your liking. This chapter was a lot of fun to write. Eehehehhehe. Thanks for reading! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More warnings for graphic description and mentions of suicide attempts, but that's about it.

_I am my father’s son, because he’s a phantom, a mystery and that leaves me nothing._

***

After the initial bump of three days in the Comfort Room, Ryan remained on relatively good form for the next week. Apart from constantly answering back to Gavin for their first few sessions, he showed no signs of acting out again. A risk-to-self assessment determined that he was allowed to change to a room with an en-suite (a rather grandiose term for a large closet with a washbasin and a toilet in). The person administering the test told Ryan that they’d rather have everyone in rooms with their own facilities, but unfortunately they had seen too many suicide attempts via drowning using the basin or the toilet bowl.

“How many have you lost from that?” Ryan asked as he waited for his results to be determined.

“None. Too many attempts to count, though.”

Despite this, he still needed to be escorted to Shower Time every day and a week into his routine, he still found it degrading and embarrassing.

He kept to himself mostly. The other residents at North Ward still seemed too scared of him to approach him, apart from one shaky-looking man who asked him for a cigarette. Ryan told him that he didn’t smoke, sorry, but that was a lie. Gavin had bought him some cigarettes the day before as a reward for good behaviour (mostly) and he was in no mood to share his reward. He’d earned it and he wasn’t about to share it with some junkie. He made a mental note to make sure that his Smoking Time was never at the same time as that dude’s.

***

“Let’s talk about drugs.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. Gavin wasn’t sure why he expected a different reaction.

“Come on Ryan. Don’t roll your eyes at me. Be a good boy and maybe I can get you some ice cream!” Gavin responded jokingly.

Ryan glared up at him, the effort he put into not rolling his eyes obvious in his expression. Gavin laughed.

“Come on, Ryan. Let’s talk about drugs.”

“The ones they’re stuffing me with here? Which I’m pretty sure are gonna do jack shit, by the way.”

“No. Drugs. Illegal narcotics. What was your involvement with them?”

“Taking or selling?”

“Both. Why not.”

“Alright.” Ryan shifted his weight on the edge of the bed. It wasn’t very comfy, but it was a hell of a lot comfier than the gammy mattress in the Comfort Room. Gammy, heh. He laughed to himself. He’d never heard that word until he met Gavin. He liked it. “I mainly sold it. I sold to dealers mainly, but I wasn’t the head honcho. I’d get supply passed down to me to sell onto the street dealers. Occasionally I’d sell to higher profile contacts.”

“Who was in charge of you?”

“No idea. I never met the guy. Or woman. They always sent a person to me with the supply and when I was out I always had a guy who would go back to them with their portion of the profit. I took a 35% cut. It was a good deal.”

“Didn’t you ever want to know who you were working for? That sort of setup would freak me out a little.” Gavin replied, shuddering a little in his chair.

“I didn’t care, I was making money. I was never out of pocket.”

“So you never took drugs?”

“Oh no, I took drugs,” Ryan admitted openly. “I had to make sure my eventual customers were getting a good product. I wouldn’t call my drug taking a habit, merely quality control. If there was one drug that I’d call a vice, it’d be weed. Not that I _needed_ that per se. I just enjoyed it. It was nice to see a day out with a joint and a glass of whiskey.”

“I’m surprised you’re so forthcoming with this information, Ryan.” Gavin admitted, inching his chair closer to Ryan.

“What’s the point of hiding it? The whole, horrible truth may as well come out now rather than when I’m being subjected to ECT as a last resort and I run my mouth.”

Gavin considered Ryan’s response. “Fair enough. Were you ever high when you killed?”

Gavin was always reluctant to ask Ryan about his crimes. It was then that he turned from a deadpan, withdrawn individual into someone downright… creepy.

A horrible smile crept across Ryan’s face. “No.” he said. “I didn’t need it to feel good. In fact, it was better when I was sober. I was so much more in control. I could really enjoy it, enjoy it for what it was. Do you want to know what my favourite method was?”

No, Gavin thought immediately, but for his notes, his case, his career reputation, he had to know.

“Go on.”

“Choking was pretty good, but I rarely had the proper time to indulge in that. That required setup. Stabbing is fun too. I know there’s a whole can of worms to be opened with that, because it’s penetration and a substitute for sex or something, whatever. No. The best one was snapping someone’s neck. Because it was quick and efficient and they never see it coming. Sure, when you bring someone home with you for the night and you watch them _slowly_ cotton on to your plan, that’s a whole lot of fun, but snapping a neck is like junk food. Quick, easy and satisfying. And the sound is great too. It’s like popping bubblewrap.”

Gavin could feel the bile rising in his throat, but he swallowed it down painfully. With trembling fingers he made vague notes on his iPad. This guy better win me a Nobel Prize for dealing with sociopaths, Gavin thought to himself.

Suddenly, the sick grin from Ryan’s face fell away.

“Gavin, are you okay? You’re pale.”

Gavin gulped and mentally shook himself. “I’m fine, Ryan. I’m just not used to such graphic description.”

“Oh.” Ryan stared blankly at Gavin before looking briefly at the floor. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“No! Don’t be!” Gavin said. “It’s part of my job, after all. It’s just been a while since I’ve worked with someone…” Gavin trailed off, not sure how to put what he wanted to say into words.

“Like me?” Ryan offered. Gavin nodded. He wanted to avoid using that phrase, but it couldn’t really be avoided.

 _Haywood capable of at least feigning regretful behaviour. Progress?_ Gavin typed out on his iPad.

Ryan reached to his intact bedside table and took the bottle of water sat on it. He offered it to Gavin.

This simple gesture threw Gavin into panic. Ryan wouldn’t have poisoned the water. Surely not? Even so, was he ready to share water with a serial killer?

Reluctantly, Gavin took the bottle and drank from it. He maintained eye contact with Ryan throughout. Ryan’s expression remained neutral.

“Thank you,” Gavin said, handing the bottle back to Ryan, who placed it back on the bedside table. Exactly in the middle, Gavin noticed. He made a brief note of the interaction on his tablet and as he went to his plan for the session, his watch beeped. Their time was up for the afternoon.

“You gotta get going?” Ryan asked. Ryan asked that same question every time Gavin’s watch beeped. Maybe insanity really _was_ doing (in this case, asking) the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

“Yep,” Gavin replied. “I won’t see you til Monday now.”

Mentor sessions weren’t held on Sundays, Ryan found out. They were “days off” for patients. For most patients, this meant spending their time in the Common Room. Ryan spent his last Sunday in the Reading Room, reading through old furniture magazines. All literature available to patients had to be vetted and deemed fit for reading by hospital officials.

Gavin pressed the button on his iPad and got up to leave. Ryan copied, standing up too.

“Until Monday, Gavin.” He said, outstretching his hand. They had shaken hands before, but it was Gavin who had been initiating it before. The gesture threw Gavin for six. Apart from the initial greeting, he wasn’t actually supposed to make any physical contact with the patient apart from in case of an emergency. He was pretty sure that drinking Ryan’s water was a violation of some kind of rule, too. On a whim, he took Ryan’s hand and shook it.

“See you,” Gavin said, before the door to Ryan’s room was opened to let him out.

***

Back in Gavin’s apartment, Gavin went over the events of the day.

There was something about Ryan’s… humanity that was bothering him. The medication and talking therapy couldn’t have been working that well already… could they? He couldn’t think of anything else. He had noticed that he maybe had a better connection with Ryan than anyone else at North Ward, but that didn’t explain Ryan’s “kind” gestures. He decided to put it out of his mind. He had a meeting with his boss between sessions with Ryan on Monday, he’d bring it up then.

But for the rest of the night, as he cooked his dinner, as he watched TV, as he read, as he bathed, he couldn’t get Ryan out of his mind. He _wanted_ it to be Monday. He wasn’t sure if it was because the case and the subject were interesting and he wanted to learn more, or if it was because there was some small, morbidly curious part of him that sort of… liked Ryan? Found him to be a likable person? He told himself that it was because the work he was doing was fascinating and Ryan just _happened_ to be the subject. He loved his work. He hadn’t been this enthusiastic about a case in years.

That night, he had a dream about Ryan again. Set outside of North Ward, this time, Gavin was trudging through the desert, sun beating down on his face (and nose). He was tired, exhausted and dehydrated. In the distance he saw a figure, and after what felt like a year, he reached the figure. It was Ryan, holding the same bottle of water Gavin had drank from. Ryan offered the bottle to Gavin, who again was reluctant to take the bottle. Ryan’s hands were bloody, and there was blood smeared on the bottle.

“You’ll die if you don’t drink,” was all Ryan said.

Gavin looked at the expanse of desert before him and looked at the bloodied bottle. He glanced up at Ryan, whose face was expressionless, but there was something about his face that Gavin could trust.

Gavin took the bottle from Ryan’s hands and drank as if he had never tasted water before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter sponsored by the album Replicas by Tubeway Army.  
> I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS. And it will get better and more plot and AAH.   
> Is Ryan fucking Gavin up or is Gavin getting Ryan to let his guard down? WHO KNOWS.  
> Thank you again for all the love and your fab comments. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for graphic descriptions, brief mentions of rape (no actual rape, though), masturbation, s&m, yadda yadda.

_My knife, it’s sharp and chrome. Come see inside my bones._

A little after a month at North Ward, Ryan found himself in the Comfort Room again.

It was only for two nights this time, and Ryan wasn’t nearly as angry as before, but he was still unhappy about it, and was not happy about the reason he was thrown in there.

He wasn’t sure whether it was a side effect of spending so much time with the guy, but Gavin was really growing on Ryan. He was growing on him, in unconventional ways.

Gavin was likable, and Ryan was eternally grateful that he was given a mentor that he could have some back-and-forth with, some level of understanding with. The thing he liked most about Gavin though, was his body and his looks.

It sounded incredibly shallow on the surface, but the reality of it was twisted. Gavin had a body that Ryan wanted to disgusting, horrendous things to. He simultaneously wanted to plow into him and break his limbs. He wanted to make him a quivering, sobbing mess, by fingering him to climax or by biting his neck so hard he’d break the skin. He’d done that before on one of this previous victims. He’d found it to be very enjoyable. He wanted to taste Gavin’s blood, tie him up and beat him until he was black and blue, carve pretty pictures into his back. And then, once they’d fucked, in the afterglow, when Gavin would least expect it, under the guise of comfort, Ryan would take his head in his hands and snap his neck.

When Ryan first discovered that he got off to killing, he tried to feel bad. He really, really did.

At this point, he just accepted it.

He wasn’t attracted to corpses. He wasn’t into the idea of having sex with a dead body. The thought itself made him shudder a little. He wasn’t into the whole rape fantasy thing, either. No, he’d make Gavin want to get beaten up. Gavin would be begging Ryan to hurt him, to bite him so hard that he’d be marked for weeks. It was much better that way. It was when Ryan caught himself mid-thought that he realised that he was truly sick.

It was those thoughts that kept Ryan up at night and it was those thoughts that Ryan was caught jacking off to when one of the security guards caught him. He was stupid to think that his en-suite would keep him out of sight from the window in his door. He figured later that the rooms with bathroom facilities had special glass in them that magnified the room and allowed guards to see the whole room. The en-suite, after all, did not have a door.

Ryan was thrown into the Comfort Room while still incredibly aroused. His hands were handcuffed behind him, for obvious reasons. The embarrassment was made worse when he woke up after having a wet dream, covered in sweat and in gross underwear like a fucking fifteen year old. For the first time since being committed to North Ward, he was glad for Shower Time.

***

The sessions that day were noticeably more strained. Ryan wasn’t particularly embarrassed anymore, no longer caught up in sick thoughts, but he knew that if he was asked about it, he would either be too open and cause him to be a) confined to the CR forever or b) rocketed up to the top of the waiting list on Death Row. Or he would not say anything and Gavin probably wouldn’t take that for an answer and end up making him confess and then he’d lose Gavin as a mentor. Which he didn’t want since despite all the disgusting thoughts, he liked Gavin as a person too.

“So tell me Ryan, why you’re in here _again?_ ”

“I’d rather not say.” Ryan said plainly, looking Gavin in the eye, as if to say “I have nothing to hide here.”

It was finally Gavin’s turn to roll his eyes at Ryan.

“Come on, Ryan. You think the people here tell me nothing? I know you were caught masturbating.”

Ryan didn’t flinch.

“You’re not mad?”

“I’m mad because I didn’t get to cum,” Ryan said, purposefully putting on a light-hearted voice, “if that’s what you mean.”

Gavin went red. “That’s not what I mean.”

Ryan chuckled. “I was mad at the time. But you’re not yourself when you’re all caught up in that sorta stuff, are you? You’re not a rational, sane human being – not that I am normally, apparently – you’re just a bundle of nerves chasing an orgasm. So yes, I was mad at the time. I’m a little miffed today that I’ve been punished for a totally human instinct, but whatever.”

Gavin made his notes. “I have to ask. What were you thinking about? Was it just a combination of hormones and chemicals that made you want to do that, or was it something you were thinking about that led you to do it?”

Gavin had given Ryan an out. Thank fucking Christ, Ryan thought to himself.

“I dunno. You know when you wake up hard in the mornings? It was like that, except… I dunno. I just got horny. A man has urges y’know?”

“Do you know how many rapists have used that as a defence?” Gavin asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oh come on, Gavin, I’m not a rapist. I like everything to be in my control and going the way I want it, including whoever I’m interacting with.”

“Did you ever have sex with your victims?” Gavin asked.

“While they were alive and _consenting_ , yes,” Ryan said, emphasising the key word. “I had a whole phase of seducing my victims, sleeping with them and getting them in the afterglow. I had a whole routine-“

Ryan felt his heartbeat starting to increase. He felt the ugly, serial-killer side of himself rear its head, the one with the sick smile and the drawling voice that made Gavin pale and feel faint. Now was not the time to do that.

“- but that’s not really important. The point is, whenever I had sex with a victim, or whenever I had sex in general, it was always consensual.”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Gavin said, hastily taking notes on his tablet.

“Ironically, it was those victim cases that got me here. DNA on the corpse – _that got there before they were a corpse, by the way_ – was what got me linked to all the other ones. In hindsight, I should have thought about that.”

Gavin was silent for a minute while he brought up Ryan’s case notes and had a browse through them.

“You’re gay?” Gavin asked, sounding legitimately surprised.

“Yeah. Well, bi, technically. I just have a preference for men.”

“Because I’m just looking at these files,” Gavin said, “and I can see you definitely had a preference for men. Alpha male types?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, not supressing his rising heartbeat this time. “I got so much shit at school, it was so good to have those types completely under my control. Y’know the type I’m talking about?” Ryan asked, grinning up at Gavin. Gavin nodded.

“There was something so satisfying about having them under my spell. I had them naked, their ass in the air begging to be fucked. It was exhilarating to literally fuck over the people that gave me all that crap while I was in school. Killing them was the icing on the cake. They deserved it.”

Gavin could tell that Ryan had gone into horrible-creepy-killer mode, so didn’t look at him as he spoke.

“Now here there’s a case of a man who has your DNA on – in – him and with several stab wounds, head trauma and ligature marks. Looking at the other cases of this nature, you just snapped their necks and then dumped the body somewhere discreet. With this guy there’s so much overkill, and you dumped him on the side of a busy thoroughfare. Personal connection.”

Ryan _couldn’t_ hide his grin this time.

“He _was_ one of the guys that gave me crap in school. I had a thing or two to say and do to him.”

***

Gavin was quite glad for the break between sessions. The first one had been quite full on.

And yet, Gavin thought to himself, he still doesn’t scare me so much that I want out. I still like him. He’s just got some anger issues.

_Oh shit._

Gavin had just unknowingly defended a serial killer. A serial killer that he liked.

People don’t _like_ serial killers, Gav, he told himself, he’s just interesting.

Gavin had found it interesting to find out he was gay – bi – though. He didn’t look it, or really act like it, but Gavin realised how much of an uneducated bellend he sounded like when he thought of it like that.

***

“Do you want to talk about the day you got arrested?” Gavin asked that afternoon. Ryan’s had use of his hands back and was using them to create a long string of loom bands, a new exercise that had been brought in to calm patients down and to keep their hands busy.

“Sure,” Ryan said, smiling up at Gavin as he reached into the box to pull out another band. He looked like a little kid. Gavin almost wanted to lean down and pat his head.

“So you were caught by the LSPD in a car that had broken down, correct?”

“It was all a distraction. I’m a gun for hire – well, I was a gun for hire – so it was like an unwritten rule that any job I go on, I have to take the fall. Which I’m fine with, because I have a backup plan. I’m a silver-tongued devil who can charm his way out of anything. Which would have worked, had it not been for this ongoing investigation into these murders and the whole DNA matching thing. Anyway, I digress. I was working a bank heist with a crew. I was the one doing all the threatening and shooting my gun into the ceiling to prove a point. I was a distraction throughout the whole heist, I suppose.”

“Anyway, my job was to keep gunning while the money was loaded into the van, then we were going to split, four of them in the van and me and another person in my car. When we got to the vehicles, the van wouldn’t start. In that situation, you’ve gotta get out somehow, you can’t be trying over and over to get the thing to start. We had about thirty seconds lead on the cops because we’d parked under the bank. They grabbed their cash and we swapped cars and I told my passenger to go with them, I’d stay with the van. They all got in there. It looked a little bit like a clown car, but they managed to get away. I got caught with the van and some of the money and the cops were all so elated with catching one person that they actually let another five get away relatively easily. Anyway, I started planning out my exit plan while I was in the cop car and in the police station. I’m a well off guy, the police are corrupt as fuck, surely they’d be able to forget a ‘little misunderstanding’, right fellas? Anyway, they took my fingerprints and then… well, the rest is history.”

Gavin nodded throughout Ryan’s monologue while taking notes. When Ryan finished his story, he let him get his breath back a bit before he started asking the questions.

“Who were you working for?” Gavin asked.

“How long have you been in the US, here specifically?” Ryan asked.

“What has that got anything to do with it?”

“Well,” Ryan began, “they’re a crew notorious around these parts. 90% of the people around here would know who I was talking about. Just wondering if you’re part of that percentage.

“Well, I’ve got here only a few weeks before I started working with you and I’ve not heard of any gangs. But try me.”

“I was working for Geoff Ramsey and the Fake AH Crew. They’re a big fucking deal, and they pretty much run half of the city in one way or another. They’re bank robbers, drug dealers, hitmen, they’re everything people fear. I’d been working with them pretty much full time for the last month or so before I got caught.”

“No. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them before,” Gavin said.

They spoke for another half hour about Ryan’s involvement with the gang before Gavin’s alarm went off to signal the end of their session. Gavin had made a lot of notes and had a long night of compiling them together. Their first session was still playing on Gavin’s mind, as was the dream he had about Ryan choking him. At the time he hadn’t thought of it as a sexual dream, really, just a little twisted. But he felt sick when thinking about it again, a spark of excitement started flittering about in his lower abdomen.

***

“Hello?”

“ _Gavin?”_

“Oh. It’s you. Long time no speak.”

“ _There’s a reason for that.”_

“I know.”

“ _Listen, do you have time to talk?_ ”

“Sure.”

“ _Are you still in the industry?”_

“I can be. Depends on what you want.”

“ _I think with your profession, you might be able to help me out_.”

“What do you need?”

“ _I need a guy_.”

“I think I know a guy.”

“ _Contact me on this number if you can help. I’ll send you some information too._ _There’ll be an envelope under your door next Tuesday.”_

“Great. I’ll be in touch.”

“ _I hope so_.”

_Click._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter sponsored by the album Ultra by Depeche Mode. Oh god I never knew I could write so fucked up. I hope I didn't disgust anyone too much! Again, thank you for all the great comments so far and thank you for reading <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small warning for mention of suicide. Also don't read if Sudoku and Pig Latin upset you for some reason.

“He’s showing real signs of progress.”

“Thank you, sir.” Gavin said, trying not to smile too much. He’d been working with Ryan for two months now and had developed an odd rapport with him. The staff at North Ward told him that he was still as withdrawn as ever around others, so couldn’t understand the change of character that Gavin had supposedly seen. Ryan hadn’t been in the CR since the second time and despite his lack of interaction with others, others seemed less terrified of him.

Gavin’s superior shuffled his papers. “I’m going to need you to carry a Taser with you when you see him. We can’t be sure if this rapport is genuine on his half, or just a trap.”

“But… what?” Gavin asked, gobsmacked. Gavin liked to work on trust. During his past cases, he’d built up a connection with his patient to the point where his patient trusted him. Maybe if Ryan were a criminal the likes of a robber or a drug user, then maybe that would be a viable option. But if Gavin carried a Taser and Ryan found it on him… Gavin dreaded to think how that would go down. “I can’t, sir, if he finds out, I’ll be a dead man.”

“Surely if you have a rapport, then he won’t mind you carrying one? He’ll understand, surely?” His superior was supressing a smug grin. Gavin grit his teeth. He’d have to comply and if he ended up a corpse, well, his boss was going to have some serious explaining to do.

Gavin reluctantly signed the relevant forms before sinking down in his chair.

“Come on Gavin, it’s like you don’t _want_ to tase the scumbag. He’s just like a wild dog or something – you gotta show him who’s boss. He steps a toe out of line and-“

His boss mimicked tasing an invisible figure in front of him, sound effects included and all.

“He’s still a person though,” Gavin said in a small voice.

“He’s a person who’s incapable of feeling emotion and killed dozens and dozens of people. I wouldn’t feel too bad about tasing him should the opportunity arise.” His boss replied in a harsh voice. Gavin sighed.

***

Ryan sat in a corner of the common room, lightly chewing on the end of a pencil. In front of him on the table was a book of Sudoku puzzles. Every month, residents were allowed to fill out a form to request an item, should they wish to. Ryan’s first request for an extra pillow had been denied for some reason (it was later explained to him that a similar request had been filled once, only for the requester to make a noose out of the extra fabric). His second request had been for a book of Sudoku puzzles. In the “reason for request” segment of the form Ryan wrote:

 _As much as I may need “work done” on my emotional and moral mind, I would like to keep myself intellectually challenged_. _Despite group work often being challenging and thought-provoking, it does not satisfy my need for factual answers and it does not provide the scientific/mathematic stimulus that I need. Alongside this may I also request a pencil (to be sharpened by security when needed) with an eraser on the end._

Gavin, being Ryan’s mentor had the last say on whether the request was denied or approved. Gavin would have approved the pillow, but it was a rule now, that no matter how stable a patient appeared, they were not allowed fabrics of any kind. It was a strict environment to the point that Ryan’s Sudoku pencil was inspected every hour to make sure that it wasn’t too sharp. Ryan didn’t have the urge to hurt anyone with the pencil to begin with, but with the interruption to his Sudoku, he would develop the urge to hurt the next person who came to inspect his pencil. He was given a verbal warning for mistreatment of staff and decided to stay quiet after that.

It was Visiting Time, which happened every Wednesday after afternoon mentoring. Ryan never had any visitors. He quite liked the common room at this time, because it meant it was fairly quiet as Visiting Time took place in the Dining Room. There was only Ryan and another person shakily rolling a cigarette in the common room this week.

He was nose-deep into a three-out-of-five-star Sudoku puzzle when a member of security came over to him.

“Get up, Haywood, you’ve got a visitor.”

Ryan was puzzled. He couldn’t think of anyone who wanted to visit him. Both of his parents were dead and if any of his “friends” from the outside came to see him, they’d probably end up being committed. Confused, Ryan allowed his hands to be handcuffed in front of him and followed security into the Dining Room.

Ryan had never seen Visiting Time before. The patients sat opposite their visitors, their mentors stood close by. Not close enough to be within earshot, but close enough to intervene if anything kicked off.

Ryan scanned the room and at first glance, he didn’t recognise anyone. He had to properly look at faces before he realised who was there to visit him (he was also on the lookout for Gavin, who was pretty easy to spot, what with the nose and all.)

Sat by a table was a red headed girl with a severe fringe and a sunny disposition about her. Brave of her to come here, Ryan thought, I know what she’s capable of. He allowed himself to be led over to the table. He sat down, glanced over at Gavin, who nodded, before turning to the woman sat before him.

“I never thought I’d ever see you again.”

“I never thought you’d end up here.” The woman said.

Ryan chuckled. It was nice to hear a sane voice that wasn’t Gavin’s. It was nice to hear the American accent (Ryan’s latest thing was to tease Gavin about his accent.)

“It’s nice to see you, Lindsay.”

“I dig the beard,” Lindsay laughed. “You look a lot more… serial killer-y than before. I couldn’t think of a better way to put it, sorry.”

“Nah, I get it,” Ryan said, shrugging the comment off. Ryan didn’t want to admit it, but he really liked the beard too. He reached his hands up to stroke the hairs on his face. “We’re not allowed to shave. I might put in a request next month to have my hair cut. It’s tickling the back of my neck, it’s weird.”

“You have to request that sort of stuff?” Lindsay asked, disbelief in her voice. Ryan spent the next five minutes explaining the fuss he had trying to get an extra pillow.

Lindsay was a member of the Fake AH Crew, who Ryan had been working with for a few months prior to his arrest. He’d been with them pretty much exclusively for that time, but he was still amazed that Lindsay had come to visit him. He was with them to take the fall if it ever came to that. If he had functioning emotions, he’d be touched by the sentiment. It was the mental institution equivalent of a Get Well Soon card.

“What are you doing here?” Ryan asked, lowering his voice. He was sure Gavin wasn’t eavesdropping but he didn’t want to draw to much attention to himself.

“We have a shipment coming in for you.”

From what Ryan understood, a “shipment” was the term that the Fake AH Crew used to describe an associate, an inside man, a distraction, or any sort of person they were bringing in for a job. Ryan nodded.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Ryan asked, hoping he was on the same page as Lindsay.

“It could be a few months. You’ll have to be patient.”

Ryan nodded, glancing around the room for any indication of suspicion. None. He turned his attention back to Lindsay.

“And then?”

Lindsay leant in a little.

“A room has just become available. If you were interested. Good rates. Well furnished. Secure.”

Ryan knew what that meant. It meant that there was a space for him to join the Fake AH Crew permanently. He’d never done crew work full time – but if he understood what Lindsay was saying – it would mean protection and safety – for the most part.

“So you’re saying there’ll ebay away eakbray outway?” Ryan muttered.

“Atway omesay ointpay” Lindsay replied, in hush tones.

“And then a job?”

“Full time.”

Ryan understood.

They talked for a while more about what was going on outside the walls of North Ward, how Ryan was managing and about the mentoring. Gavin came over for a few minutes to discuss Ryan’s progress with Lindsay who listened and nodded intently.

“Cute mentor. I’ve always had a thing for doctors. But I supposed being married to a pyrotechnic is pretty cool too.”

“Gav is pretty,” Ryan admitted. It was something he truly believed too. He still had thoughts of what he would do to Gavin, but he knew not to let them get the better of him, so to speak.

“Not tried to woo him yet?” Lindsay teased, sticking her tongue out.

“I’d get my balls ripped off if I tried, I think,” Ryan laughed, “but if I wasn’t in here then a pass would have been made a long time ago.”

He turned to glance at Gavin to see if he’d heard his comment, but Gavin still looked blissfully unaware.

“Hopefully you won’t be here for too long – you could give it a shot,” Lindsay said jokingly. Ryan laughed the comment off externally, but thought for a second about what she’d just said. He’d figure it out later.

Five minutes later and Visiting Time was up.

“I won’t be back for a few weeks,” Lindsay said as she got up. She wasn’t allowed to hug Ryan, so she patted him on the arm. “I’m working on the shipment.”

Ryan nodded.

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Let’s hope!”

***

“Gav,” Ryan asked the next day, “why do some patients get their windows blocked out when they’re in mentoring?”

“Usually because they’re having some sort of physical examination and they have a right to privacy.”

“And having security being able to watch me while I sleep and masturbate isn’t included in my right to privacy? I have to spend time in that sucky room instead?”

Gavin sighed. “I know it’s fucked up. Just go with it. Although sometimes they’re there as a trust exercise. It gives the patient the chance to show security that they’re able to behave without the threat of being watched.”

“I thought we weren’t watched anyway?”

“It’s mainly used with paranoid patients.”

Ryan nodded. Then he grinned up at Gavin. A stupid, cute grin that belonged on the face of a boyband member rather than an insane serial killer.

“You know what I’m going to ask, Gav.”

“I’m not sure if I can, Ryan-“

“If they see that I’m capable of being around you with definitely no security, you might not have to carry around that Taser.” Ryan replied, smugly.

“How-“

“Oh come on, Gavin. You’re hiding it in the waistband of your trousers. Which is very risky, may I add, I’ve seen you trip and land on your ass a fair few times, so I’m amazed you haven’t shocked yourself yet. No, I’m not particularly bothered about it. I know you have to go through a bureaucratic minefield to get one of those things, so you’re not carrying it out of personal choice. So do you not trust me, or was it forced upon you?”

Gavin gulped.

“I trust you.”

With those three words, Gavin threw his entire career and reputation into jeopardy.

“If you trust me, Gavin, you’ll block out this window tomorrow.”

Gavin gulped painfully again. He was aware of his face going red, his mouth turning dry.

“Why?”

Gavin’s alarm went. Instead of asking his usual question, Ryan stood up before Gavin and paced around him. Ryan placed the flat of his palm on the back of Gavin’s neck and stroked gently.

“Because of these goosebumps I’m feeling. That’s why.”

Gavin closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath before mentally shaking himself. He stood up and pressed the button on his tablet, praying he hadn’t turned _too_ red.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Gavin said as he left. He was glad it was the end of his workday – he could do his paperwork at home – because he was embarrassed and needlessly flustered. Ryan’s touch had been exhilarating and his words had been even more so. Gavin wasn’t sure what he wanted. Gavin would block out the window as a sign of good faith, but if what he interpreted Ryan’s words as meaning actually happened, he wouldn’t know what to do. The part of him committed to his career said no, while his body and his instinct screamed yes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Album of the chapter goes to Wish Upon A Blackstar by Celldweller. I'm thinking of compiling a playlist for this fic, seeing as a lot of the content is written alongside music or inspired by lyrics.  
> Anyway, AAH I AM A POTENTIAL FILTHMONGER AND A PIECE OF TRASHGARBAGE but I love it and I am having a ton of fun with this! Thank you again for reading and feedback is always appreciated <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am the worst human being here is some terrible smut written by a tired person. There's rimming, breathplay, a bit of a dom/sub situation... proceed at your own risk.

Gavin’s heart thumped in his chest as he walked towards Ryan’s room the next day. In his hand, a slider that would fit in the window to prevent people from looking in.

He’d had a crappy night’s sleep, waking up in a cold sweat as a result of heated dreams. He knew it was wrong. It took a while to really comprehend just how wrong it was – if what he dreamt of actually happened. He would put his entire career at risk, his respect, Ryan’s life, even, as a result of an instinct that he couldn’t quite block out. He tried to justify it – if he hadn’t been caught, would it be so bad if one night we met and hooked up? But he couldn’t justify it by comparing it to an alternate timeline that didn’t exist. The long and short of it was that Gavin was potentially going to sleep with one of his patients – a sociopathic mass murderer – who in no way was interested in Gavin beyond using his body.

But Gavin wanted to be used.

Security opened the door to Ryan’s room and Gavin stepped in. Ryan was sat cross-legged on his bed, reading a magazine (he’d been allowed to take one from the Reading Room as a reward for good behaviour). Gavin was handed the slider and the door shut behind him. Ryan looked up at Gavin from his position. Gavin grinned weakly, his heart pounding to such an extent that he was sure Ryan could hear it. He held the slider up before securing it in the window frame.

“You bought one,” Ryan said, sounding a little surprised. “I didn’t expect you to. I’m pleased.” A smug smile crept across his face.

“How did you even clock this was something I’d be interested in?” Gavin asked, his voice shaking.

Ryan patted the bed beside him. Gavin nervously sat next to Ryan.

“I may not be good with emotions but I can read people and work out physical cues. In your work contract it states that you’re not allowed to make physical contact with the patient. You shake my hand almost every session and I can feel the goosebumps that you break out in when I touch you. Yesterday, when I touched your neck, I felt the shudder go through you and heard your ragged breathing. You drink from my water, you sit next to me like this when you’re supposed to address me from the chair as a mark of dominance. But you don’t _do_ dominance. You’re submissive, you’ve just not had the chance to exercise it yet. It’s proved in your bringing that window blocker. You’re nervous now, but it’s an excited nervous. I can smell it on you.”

“You said that you can trust me. Gavin, I want to do horrible, embarrassing, painful things to you, but if you trust me and let me control you and your every move, the pain will only heighten the experience for you. You’ll enjoy it. You’ll want me to hurt you. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, but if you put your trust in me, I will open a whole new world of experiences to you. I can tell you’ve only ever been vanilla, haven’t you? You’re biting your lip right now, whether you know it or not. I’m your chance to not be so plain. The taboo of it all turns you on too, doesn’t it? I can make you cum with the hands that I used to kill dozens of people. There’s something about that that excites you. I can see it in your eyes. I get off on causing pain, and I think you’ll get off on being in pain. You’ll enjoy it with me.”

“So there’s my offer. You want to do this, then fine. I need your complete trust and cooperation but if you say stop, I’ll stop. But if this is all too much, and you’re content with just thinking of me when you jack off at night, then that’s fine too. We’ll still interact as usual. I’ll still take the piss out of your accent and you’ll still analyse my every move. If you want out, you go ahead and remove the window blocker. If you want in, then just say so.”

Gavin took a second to think it through. Ryan had given him a chance to back out but he knew he didn’t want to take it. He wanted himself to consider it, to give himself some credit, but Gavin was in too deep. There was no way he was backing out now. He gulped.

“I’m in.”

Ryan’s expression didn’t change as he stood up.

“From here on in, you do everything I say. If you want to stop, tell me clearly to stop. These rooms are fairly soundproofed for confidentiality. Just don’t scream like a little bitch and you’ll be fine.”

Gavin nodded and licked his lips. He was quivering with excitement. Ryan was right. He got off on the taboo of it all. The whole concept of the situation excited him.

“Take your jacket and shirt off. I won’t mark you up somewhere obvious. I do have some tact. Take your shirt off and face the wall.”

Fumbling a little with the material, Gavin lifted his shirt above his head and let it fall to the floor. He could feel himself visibly shaking now.

“Don’t be scared. If you’re scared, you won’t enjoy it and neither will I. You trust me, right?”

“Yes.” Gavin uttered.

“Good boy.”

Gavin stood like that for a few seconds before he felt Ryan move behind him. He felt rough hands on his hips and stubble on his shoulders. Ryan’s breath was hot on his skin.

Ryan’s hands pulled Gavin’s hips back a little to meet his, causing Gavin’s to reach out to the wall for support. Bracing himself on the wall, he pushed his hips back a little further, to press more against Ryan. He could feel Ryan hardening as Ryan pressed against him, the hands now exploring the expanse of Gavin’s back. Gavin’s shaky breathing was the only sound in the room.

“Relax, Gavin” Ryan breathed, his hands coming to rest on his hips again. He ground up against Gavin, allowing him to feel just how excited Ryan was. Gavin moaned a little, which earned him a hard slap on the ass. It made him jump, the noise was loud in the room.

“Make noise if you want,” Ryan said, still lazily grinding up against Gavin’s ass, “but that’s what’ll happen every time you do.”

Gavin moaned in response, almost to test Ryan’s promise.

Ryan delivered. Even through his jeans, Gavin felt the sting of Ryan’s palm. The initial shock wore off fairly quickly. The sting felt good.

“I’m gonna leave so many handprints on this pretty ass of yours,” Ryan muttered, his fingers curling underneath the waistband of Gavin’s jeans and boxers. “These are getting in the way though…”

Gavin felt Ryan’s hips pull away as Gavin’s jeans and underwear were pulled down to his ankles. He was nervous and a little embarrassed to be in such a compromising position.

He felt Ryan’s hands brush over the curve of his ass, his hands then coming down, one on each cheek. Gavin let at a groan by accident and Ryan stayed true to his word – a hand came down firmly, and this time with no cushioning from his jeans, Gavin felt the full force of Ryan’s hand.

The shock was much greater and the pain was much more real than before. Even the sound was much harsher. The pain jolted through him – and Gavin loved it.

Suddenly Gavin’s hips were pulled back again so that he was bending down lower – he was almost bent over fully. He felt Ryan fall to his knees behind him.

Gavin hardly had time to wrap his head around the development when he felt Ryan’s hands on his ass again, this time pulling his cheeks apart a little. His composure went out the window when he felt Ryan’s tongue lapping at his hole, his mouth moving around the tight ring of muscle – Gavin bit into his arm to stop himself from making noise. Gavin never really understood the expression “eating out” before – but now he did. Ryan was not holding back, Ryan’s tongue flitting in and out of his entrance. Gavin was having a hard time staying in that position – he knees wanted to give out. But he was sure that Ryan’s hands would keep him firmly in position. Gavin wanted to groan when Ryan removed his tongue. He felt Ryan spit onto his hole before he felt the intrusion of two fingers inside him.

The stretch burned. The farthest he’d been with a guy was giving head, and he was pretty crap at that due to his pathetic gag reflex. But this was something new, something foreign to him. His instinct told him to yell. He felt the sharp pain a few seconds after.

He felt his body move in conjunction with Ryan’s hands, Gavin bringing himself down onto Ryan’s fingers as Ryan pushed in, chasing the burn. He wanted more. He wanted three fingers, he wanted four, he wanted to feel himself get stretched open. His dick was painfully hard and twitched at the thought of four fingers inside of him. Almost as if Ryan could read thoughts, he pulled his fingers out, spat on Gavin again before inserting three fingers. Ryan was right, he was making Gavin want the pain. He started making noises openly, wanting to feel Ryan’s hands come down on him. He could feel how sore his ass was, he could feel Ryan’s handprints burning him, almost like a brand. Gavin was pretty sure that this was all he needed to cum, but just as Gavin was about to reach a tipping point, Ryan pulled his fingers out of Gavin. Gavin felt empty and his knees really did give way, leading to him stumbling into the wall. He managed to stand up and leant against the wall for composure while Ryan wiped his fingers on the inside of Gavin’s jacket.

Gavin took the opportunity to take his breath back. He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, he looked over at Ryan to see him jacking himself off. Ryan locked gazes with Gavin as he got himself off, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. He grinned that smug grin of his before biting his lip, all while he was gazing at Gavin. It was a sight to behold. It was pornography.

After a minute or so, Ryan walked over to where Gavin was before he sank down to the floor, back against the wall, legs spread. He beckoned to Gavin.

“You’re gonna fuck yourself on my cock while you jack off. And I’m gonna choke you. Understand?”

“Oh God, yes.” Gavin said, his voice slightly hoarse from moaning and gasping.

“If it gets too much, put your hand up. I’ll stop.”

Gavin nodded in understanding. He took his pants off completely before stepping over to Ryan.

“Face away from me.” Ryan ordered.

Gavin straddled Ryan, facing away from him as he was told and started to lower himself down onto Ryan’s cock. It was slick with spit and precum, and Gavin was still fairly stretched from before. But there was that burn again, the one he’d grown to yearn for after so little time. The stretch, the fill.

Before Gavin could start moving, Ryan grabbed his left arm and bent it behind his back. Gavin winced and gasped at the pain. Ryan held it in place with his right arm, while wrapping his left hand around Gavin’s neck. Gavin started to move on Ryan’s cock, stroking his own in time with his movements.

“You see,” Ryan murmured into Gavin’s ear as the grip on his throat tightened “there comes a point where your brain doesn’t get enough oxygen, as it’s getting cut off right _here_ ,” he said, emphasising the last word with a tight squeeze. “This leads to feelings of dizziness, lightheadedness and giddiness that I think you’ll find quite pleasurable.”

The way Ryan was holding Gavin was forcing his movements to be painfully slow. He desperately wanted to bounce on the older man’s cock, but he couldn’t complain as he started to feel what Ryan was describing. He felt lightheaded and giddy – combined with the pain from his arm being bent backwards, Ryan’s cock deep inside of him and his hand pleasuring himself – he could tell it wouldn’t be long before he came.

“There comes a point,” Ryan said as the stimulus for Gavin started to melt into one devastatingly pleasant wave, “where the lack of oxygen causes the brain into go into an almost hallucinogenic state.”

Gavin could feel his orgasm building. He wanted to gasp for breath. But he enjoyed Ryan’s grip far too much.

“This is called hypoxia-“

Gavin could barely hear Ryan now for the mental fogginess. His nerve endings were on fire, every sensation bringing him to the brink.

“And hypoxia with all these stimuli… well, I think it’s time you came, Gavin.”

At Ryan’s command, Gavin came. He felt his eyelids snap shut as he released all over his hand. As he came, Ryan let go of his throat, the first gasp of air causing a second jet of cum to come spurting out, the air feeling almost as good as the orgasm itself. He felt Ryan spill into him from his own orgasm through the fogginess of his and as the two of them started to recover, he felt Ryan drop his left arm, giving him free movement of both of his arms. He stayed sat on Ryan for a few more minutes, before the sensation of overstimulation became too much for him to handle. He fell forward onto his hands and knees as he grabbed his clothes. Ryan, as casual as ever, merely tucked himself back in as he watched Gavin fumble around.

“You might want to take a shower before you come back later,” Ryan said. “You’re full, plus you’ve been sweating. Don’t want people catching on now, do we?”

Gavin looked meekly at him and nodded. Suddenly he was very aware of all the aches and pains his body had been subjected to – sitting down was going to be an issue.

Ryan chuckled a little. “First time with a guy? You were fantastically tight.”

Gavin blushed. He suddenly felt a little vulnerable. He felt odd. Empty, almost.

Gavin sat with Ryan for a few minutes, aware that their time together ought to be coming to a close.

He wasn’t aware he was crying until Ryan brought it up.

“Hey, hey. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Gavin said, trying to control the tears. “It’s just, I’ve never done that before and it was a lot to take in – innuendo not intended – and I’m just… I’ve never been used like that.”

For the first time in a long time, Ryan decided to show compassion. He wrapped his arm around Gavin and pulled him in tight. He kissed his forehead.

“You did amazingly. You took me so well and you listened and did as I said. I know in the moment it seems like I’m doing that to be all dominant but it’s also because it’s what’ll make it feel best for you. You were so good. You did so good for me and I’m proud of you. I want you to know that if we keep this up – which a decision entirely up to you – yes, you may be treated like an object because that’s how this sort of stuff works. But that doesn’t mean that I think of you in general as an object. I think of you as a person – a great person who’s sacrificing a lot just to do this. I know I’m a sociopath and a mass murderer which makes this whole situation a little bit more confusing, but when I boss you around like I just did, it’s almost like a character I slip into. I enjoy it. And I hope you enjoyed it too. You can get to explore your submissive side and I know I can help you explore it safely.”

Gavin felt better after Ryan’s little speech. Ryan allowed Gavin to huddle up next to him for a few minutes until he’d calmed down enough to get security.

“Do I look like I’ve had very rough sex?” Gavin asked, sticking his tongue out.

“I wish,” Ryan laughed in response. “Gavin, in the time between sessions, go home and have a warm bath. Eat a big meal of something you really like. Have some you time. You’ve earned it. You deserve it.”

Gavin had never expected Ryan to be so kind. Was there, besides from the whole sex thing… some actual progress being made? Was the sex causing the progress?

“Oh, and Gavin?”

“Yes?” Gavin asked, hearing the guards coming down the hallway.

“We don’t have to do this every session, y’know. I don’t think either of us could manage it. But y’know… if you do fancy it, just bring that window thing. I’m sure I’ll be able to muster up some strength.”

“Got it,” Gavin smiled. He waved bye to Ryan, taking the window blocker with him. He wasn’t sure quite when he’d bring it back with him… but he knew that he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAH  
> i'm sorry if that was the least sexy thing you've ever read. i am trash but i enjoyed writing it.  
> again thank you for your feedback, thank you for reading and feedback <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place six months after the previous chapter. Enjoy!

There was a tense atmosphere in Geoff’s penthouse.

Geoff didn’t want it to be tense – there was no reason for it to be tense – so he put it down to the 2am meeting time and the fact that most of his crew were going to have to deal with the guy expected to arrive any minute for the very first time. As far as he could recall, him and Michael were the only people to work with him previously.

“Don’t let his accent put you off or confuse you,” Geoff had told them, “he’s mostly harmless. He’s like a guard dog, he’s soft as anything around people he knows, it’s when he’s faced with hostiles he goes off. It’s why I worked with him so much way back when. He’s good.”

“I’m amazed how lucky you were to find a perfect guy for this job. You really lucked out, huh?” Lindsay said. Geoff grinned.

“It’s fucking fantastic. It’s the perfect setup.”

The conversation was interrupted by the doorbell. The tense atmosphere returned momentarily before Geoff got up to open the door.

“Good to see you again,” Geoff said to the man at the door, before pulling him into a hug. “Follow me into the main room. Come meet everyone.”

The man followed Geoff into the main living area of his luxurious penthouse. The guy had really made an empire for himself since they last worked together. It had only been about five years ago, but so much had changed.

He glanced over at Michael and the two exchanged grins – Michael jumping up out of his seat to pull the man into yet another hug.

“You good, boi? It’s been too long!”

The man was about to respond just as Lindsay yelled.

“Holy shit!”

The man turned to face the source of the noise.

“Oh, fuck!” was his response.

“I didn’t know you worked for Geoff!” Lindsay said, getting up and walking briskly to the man.

“I didn’t know _you_ worked for Geoff!” he replied, voice gradually getting higher pitched. “Geoff, why didn’t you let me know she was a part of your operation? I wouldn’t have hovered around him so much when she came to visit if I knew what that was all about!”

“Because it would have been too dangerous. You’re in the perfect position and I didn’t want to blow your cover too early.” Geoff grinned.

“It’s good to have you as part of the team again, Gavin.”

***  
“So how’s it going with Ryan? How much does he trust you?”

Gavin blushed a little. He was sat on one of Geoff’s many sofas, between Lindsay (who had come to visit Ryan at North Ward) and Jack (a woman who was the perfect combination of gorgeous and deadly). Geoff had to split Gavin and Michael up due to the fact that Geoff needed to talk business – the two of the squawking at each other was not conducive to his goal. Geoff sat opposite him in his grand leather armchair. Michael, Jeremy and Matt (two other new people Gavin hadn’t met before) were sat on yet another sofa. Everyone was leaning in, listening intently to what Gavin had to say.

“Uh, yeah. He trusts me. I trust him. We have a whole thing.”

Everyone looked a little disappointed at the lack of grandiose vocabulary. They all looked like they were ready for a monologue out of an action film. Instead, Gavin gave them basic English.

“How do you mean ‘a whole thing’?” Michael asked.

“They’re fucking” Geoff said plainly. Gavin made a bird noise in protest, but Geoff just held his hand up to Gavin.

“I’m not judging, man. That guy, if he’s not scheming or killing, he’s usually trying to fuck someone. He’s tried it on with Jack before-“ Jack gave Gavin the thumbs up – “and he’s come to me, too. I think he’s tried it on with just about everyone, and I know at least three of us, including myself, have given into it. So I wouldn’t feel bad. I’m amazed you haven’t been caught, though.”

“It’s not been _that_ regular of a thing, to be honest,” Gavin said. “We’ve maybe fucked like… three or four times? It’s not a big deal. They’re soundproofed rooms.”

“I’m confused,” Jeremy piped up. “I mean, congrats on getting laid and all, but how are you even there in the first place?”

The question caused Geoff’s mouth to turn into a grin, his expression one of delight.

“This is why it’s so fucking perfect. Gavin was my inside man before I even knew he was on Ryan’s case. Gavin is Ryan’s mentor and was before I even asked him to work this case with us. Which means no suspicion if someone new comes in, and it also means that Ryan won’t suspect a thing when we bust him out.”

“Why can’t Ryan know that Gavin’s on his side?” Matt asked.

“Because he’ll try and get involved with his own breakout. He knows he’s being busted out – he just doesn’t know how and when. If he knew Gavin was part of us, I think he’d try and get too involved, which would complicate things for us. It’s already pretty complicated to bust someone out of a mental institution without a patient trying to bust _himself_ out.”

Matt nodded in understanding. Gavin hadn’t felt quite so at home in a long time. He’d missed Geoff and Michael. They’d been quite a trio when Geoff and Michael had come over to the UK for work a few years ago.

Gavin got involved with the Fake AH Crew through hacking. Geoff used to be the crew’s hacker before Gavin intercepted his hack when he was infiltrating a bank’s security system (Gavin had been a bored twenty-year-old at the time and was only trying to infiltrate the bank himself to see if he could – when he found an opposing force he had to take it down – and he did). Upon tracking Gavin down, Geoff asked Gavin to join the group. Unable to abandon his studies at the time, Gavin agreed to work with him while he was in the UK and then stayed in touch in case they needed their paths to cross. He never imagined a situation where he’d be reunited with his favourite employer, but he was glad that a situation had arisen.

“So what’s the plan?” Jack asked.

All eyes were on Gavin, who quite frankly, didn’t have a plan.

“Um,” Gavin said, quickly feeling his face go red again. “We can’t have a plan, per se, because we can’t predict his moves. He has a routine that he sticks to out of necessity. We could try and hit North Ward as a whole – kill the lights and the security, get him out in the ensuing chaos – or we could try and single him out. If that’s the approach we want to go for, I can’t have anything to do with that because I’m too close to him and I don’t want to bring any attention down on me. If they find out what I’ve been up to, I’ll lose my job for sure.”

“I definitely think that we go for the ‘single him out’ route. Hitting the entire facility is just too dangerous and will, as a result, cause police activity to skyrocket. At least if we do it a little more subtly, we have some room to work with.”

“Exactly,” Gavin said, his confidence coming back. He was getting back into the swing of scheming – spitballing ideas with the rest of them, deciding what was bad and what was good. He’d missed this. “I can’t say for sure, but he’s been bringing his mum up a lot in our sessions recently.  He’s mentioned more than once about requesting a trip to her grave. That would be a great opportunity. I’d be able to get a date and a location to you – probably about a day’s notice. But as I said, I don’t know how serious he is about this. He talk about her like he cares about her – but he has changed a lot since we first met nine months ago. He was diagnosed as insane and a sociopath – insane, yes maybe, but sociopath – maybe he was sort of when he was first admitted. But he’s showing a lot more sentimentality and humanity now. He’s even been talking to other patients.”

Geoff nodded. “I’ve been getting the notes you send. But remember, it’s the ruthless killer we want, not some hollow version of himself.”

“That sounds horrible.” Jeremy said. “I wouldn’t call _us_ ruthless killers.”

“Ryan’s different.” Geoff explained. “He’s like a controlled explosion in that I can tell him where and when to wreak havoc, but the havoc is always different depending on how he feels. I don’t think he feels things when he kills people. From what he told me before he got caught, the amount of people he killed had gone down since he joined us because he didn’t have to go out and hunt as often – we provided him with the game.”

“You make him sound like a wolf or something, Jesus.”

“He’s efficient. But he’s also a good guy to be around. He’ll defend you – which is why we’re in this situation to begin with – he’s a good laugh, knows how to have fun… he’s innovative. He’s a jack of all trades and just a great all-rounder. I can’t explain it, but you’ll know what I mean when you work with him. Gavin, I think the best chance we have with this is him going to see his mum. See if you can push him into doing that without being too obvious. What are we looking at security-wise in that situation?”

“Not much,” Gavin replied simply. “It’d be me handcuffed to him. Maybe he’d be handcuffed to another guard. Then there’s the driver, who’ll probably be another guard and maybe some security in the graveyard itself. They’ll have to clear the area, so if you’re thinking of springing the attack then, you’re going to need to be pretty well hidden. I can go and visit the place beforehand and give you an idea of the coverage and stuff?”

“That’d be good, yeah. That’d be great.” Geoff said quietly. Gavin could see the cogs turning in his head as he churned out the first draft of the plan.

“I’m thinking if we can – we get a sniper for each guard and take them out on the same count while you and Ryan keep cover. I think at that point he’ll be allowed to cotton on to what’s going on. I’ll work on the logistics. We’re not in a rush, are we Gavin?”

“Of course we’re not,” Michael chimed in, “Gavin’s in no rush, he’s got twisted, taboo sex to keep him occupied.”

Gavin threw a pillow at Michael’s head. Michael snorted.

***

Meanwhile, back in the doctor offices of North Ward, Gavin’s superior, Dr. Davidson, was sat at Gavin’s desk. Gavin’s reporting had become disappointing lately, with barely any relevant notes being made. He rifled through Gavin’s file on Haywood to try and find something a little more substantial, but it was fruitless. Looking at the work Gavin had done, Davidson came the conclusion that Haywood was manipulating Gavin and playing him like a fiddle. It was clear to see that he had gotten into Gavin’s head, had lured him into this false sense of security… despite all signs pointing to progress, Davidson knew that someone as sick as Haywood wasn’t capable of progress. He wanted to see that guy facing the lethal injection.

He left Gavin’s office in the same state he’d found it – notes strewn everywhere, empty cans of Red Bull littering the floor.

That night, Davidson made the decision to pull Gavin from the Haywood case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to the album The Pale Emperor by Marilyn Manson for getting me through this chapter and providing some fantastic, brooding, plotting music. After the filth that was last chapter, let's get back to some plot, shall we?   
> Thank you for reading, and thanks for all the love on this story so far <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for heavy sedation and sensory deprivation. enter... IF YOU DARE.

It was now common practice that if Gavin wanted to take advantage of Ryan’s offer, he’d take a window blocker with him to his sessions. He made sure to keep its uses fairly few and far between as to avoid suspicion, but having presented a programme outline to his superior focussing on the importance of trust, no one really batted an eyelid if a blocker was used twice, thrice a week.

Filling in the form (mainly out of politeness, now) for the third time this week, Gavin bounced over to his superior to have his request approved before practically running down through the hospital to get to Ryan. By now, Gavin had learned to take an identical change of clothes, lube (because sometimes he just didn’t _feel_ like being dry-fucked open) and a bottle of water for afterwards. He kept his bag in his locker, not trusting himself to bring it with him to the staff room (he was far too good at tripping over his own bag and emptying its entire contents).

“Sir, if you could just stamp this, I’ll be on my way to Haywood. We’re making real progress at the moment. Right on track with the programme I gave you.”

Davidson took the form from Gavin’s hand and started to walk, motioning to Gavin to follow. Gavin followed his superior like a puppy follows its owner – minus the lolling tongue – only just.

They went through a few doors to a small kitchen that was currently unoccupied. Closing the door behind the two of them, Davidson put Gavin’s request form on the table before staring the younger man down.

“Are you really making progress, Free?”

“Um – yes?” Gavin replied, a little confused. “He’s a lot more open about things than when we first started working together. The rapport is real – I know you think that he’s in my head and just acting like he’s improving to get to me, but it’s been nearly a year now and-“

“I’m not convinced, Free,” Davidson said firmly. “I’ve been looking at your notes - or your lack of thereof – Free, a two-sentence summary is not enough when you’re working with a man like Haywood. This sounds harsh, but you shouldn’t be smiling when you go into and come out of those sessions. He’s duped you into this sense of security, he’s letting you believe that he’s getting better and a man like him _can’t_ get better. It’s science. I don’t trust him and quite frankly, I think it was a mistake on my part assigning you to him. I don’t think you realise, Gavin, but he’s manipulated you. He’s gotten into your head. You weren’t ready for him. I’m sorry, Free, but I’m taking you off Haywood.”

Gavin’s heart plummeted. It was too much to take in. From being insulted to being called inadequate, from undermining Ryan’s progress to taking him off the case, there was so much to be upset and angry about. He couldn’t wrap his head around _one_ thing to feel particularly offended by. It all culminated in one general offended-sounding noise.

But the most important – the worst – was that he was getting taken off Ryan’s case.

“But – but I’m sure that – it’s a real rapport, trust me – you can’t just take me off the case, it’s not – he needs me – we work together-“

“See? That’s what I’m talking about.” Davidson said, ripping up Gavin’s request form while Gavin himself struggled to formulate a proper sentence. “Take your stuff from your locker, take a week off – as far as I’m concerned, it’ll be sick leave. I’ll have a nice easy case for you when you come back. We’ve got a few newbies arriving next week.”

Gavin was ushered out of the building before he could form a coherent argument. Too angry to cry, to dumbstruck to talk, he stormed home feeling numb, concerned for himself but more concerned for Ryan.

***

Ryan knew something was wrong when Gavin didn’t burst in at two minutes past two with a grin on his stupid British face. It wasn’t like Ryan was starting to look forward to Gavin’s visits – but it was a nice addition to his day.

He had been starting to think about Gavin a lot more, and not in the usual way. Part of him wished that he’d met Gavin under different circumstances. He would have liked to have met Gavin while the two of them were having a beer in a bar somewhere…

Had Ryan pulled Gavin, pre-committal, would he have killed him? He was known to pull and not to kill afterwards, but for the few months prior to his arrest, he killed them afterwards more often than not. If statistics were anything to go by, then yes, he would have killed Gavin.

He _had every opportunity_ kill him. There was nothing from stopping him from snapping Gavin’s neck after fucking him open – indeed, he’d fantasised about that exact situation. He would be able to kill Gavin if he wanted to. Although despite fantasising about murdering his mentor, he chose not to.

He told himself that it was because he wanted to keep Gavin alive so that they could keep meeting illicitly. Not because that he didn’t want to because he liked Gavin. According to the doctors, he wasn’t supposed to feel anything. Which meant that he _couldn’t_ like Gavin, because people in white coats said so.

But Ryan could tell that he had some form of control over Gavin. Not only was Gavin pliable and obedient when they had the window blocked out, he was a lot more relaxed and a lot more unprofessional around Ryan now than when they first started working together. Ryan had him eating out of the palm of his hand – whether Gavin was bringing him cigarettes, sneaking food in for him, or sucking his cock – Gavin was _his_. Despite the sessions being led by Gavin, the room was Ryan’s territory whether Gavin liked it or not. There was an element of manipulation and mind-play, sure. But Gavin wasn’t complaining. Gavin had a job because of him and Ryan would remind him of that a lot.

So when a strange man walked into his room during Session Time, Ryan wasn’t best pleased.

“Where’s Gavin?” Ryan asked almost immediately. This wasn’t a part of his routine and he didn’t like it one bit.

“You’re not allowed to see Gavin anymore.” Davidson told Ryan, openly holding his taser out to show his superiority over him. “You’re done fucking with his mind. You can’t pull that shit with me. You’re here to get better, not to make my doctors do your bidding. You’ll be working with me from here on in, and I don’t tolerate nonsense so get any ideas of funny business out of your mind, Haywood.”

“Put that fucking taser away and let me see Gavin.” Ryan stated bluntly, looking Davidson in the eye.

“No.”

With no other argument to make, Ryan rose from his sitting position on the side of the bed, and in two large strides was facing Davidson. Before Davidson could fumble with his taser, Ryan had swatted it out of his hand before he landed a punch square in Davidson’s jaw. All the anger, all the frustration that had been building up over the course of nine months came out in Ryan punching the asshole doctor who thought he could control him. One punch wasn’t enough and before he knew it, he was holding Davidson up against the wall, punching him over and over again.

At some point, security heard the commotion and they entered the room, and Ryan felt another two pairs of hands on him. It became a game of fighting them off after that, and he won for a fair few minutes.

It was when more security entered the room – there was only so many pairs of hands he could fight off – and before he knew it he was being pinned to his own bed. He tried kicking and flailing his limbs to get them off, but he was overpowered. He had no choice but to look up at the new doctor starting down at him, bruises blooming on his face, needle in his hand.

Davidson crouched down beside Ryan, the syringe in hand. He grinned.

“I want to say I’m sorry to do this, Haywood, but I’m not.”

Ryan hissed through gritted teeth as the needle came dangerously close to his neck, his attempts to pull away only exposing the neck further. Dumb move, Ryan thought.

Ryan felt the scratch of the needle piercing his skin, and then he felt nothing.

***

When Ryan came round, he couldn’t see properly. At first he thought that he wasn’t opening his eyes properly. All he could see was blurred – and he couldn’t see much except for a single red dot in the middle of his field of vision. He tried blinking to clear the fuzziness, but it didn’t work. Everything was fuzzy, except for that tiny red dot.

He tried to bring his hands up to his eyes to rub the blur away, but when he moved his arms, he couldn’t. Not only were his arms heavy from the – what he assumed to be - rohypnol (or some other tranquilizer), but he couldn’t physically move them.

It took him a few minutes to realise that his arms and his legs were strapped into a chair, with thick, padded Velcro that enveloped most of his limbs. It was a blurry kind of sensation that almost complemented his vision.

It was not long after that when he heard the buzz. There was a very quiet, but very persistent buzzing, beep noise, like the noise one gets after a loud concert. It wasn’t in his ears, it was coming from somewhere in the room – but it was too quiet for Ryan to determine a location. When he tried to turn his head to look around, he realised that he couldn’t. His head movement was also restricted by the chair.

For the first time in a long time, Ryan started to panic. He called out for help, the call not echoing around the room, and instead falling flat – the room must have been soundproofed to a degree. But it didn’t stop him from calling out for help. As he scrunched his face up in disgust, he realised that the blurry vision was being caused by a mask that was over his eyes, causing the distortion. But there was always that small, red dot. Always there, seemingly even when he closed his eyes. It got to a point where his senses were so dulled, he wasn’t sure if he was conscious or not. The only way he knew he was awake, was to scream.

But then it came to a point where he wasn’t sure if he was screaming, or dreaming about it. The sedative was still in his system, causing his mind to go blank and numb every so often – every few minutes, every few hours, Ryan couldn’t tell.

All Ryan could do was scream, and he didn’t care anymore whether anyone heard him or not.

***

Gavin, despite being told to leave, sat on the floor outside the SenDep room, quietly crying, wanting nothing more than to break Ryan out and get out of there. He’d never heard Ryan sound so tortured, and knowing what Ryan was going through in there broke Gavin’s heart. Eventually the noise would stop for about half an hour, before another hour of terrified, broken screaming.

When Gavin finally left the facility hours later, it was dark. But Gavin couldn’t sleep. He could still hear Ryan’s screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see, when I learnt about SD, i never knew that it's actually a relaxing thing that people want? i learnt it entirely in the context of it being used as torture and a way of subjecting soldiers to propaganda. so the methods used here are the methods i learnt about - the being strapped to a chair using big velcro pads, the red dot, the buzzing. it's real fucked up but an interesting read.  
> again!! thank you for reading, bookmarking, kudos-ing and commenting. it's very appreciated <3


	9. Chapter 9

“Time, fifteen hundred hours. Date is eleventh of August, twenty-fifteen. Commencing interview with inmate. Please speak clearly for the recording to pick you up. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Please state your full name.”

“James Ryan Haywood.”

A few hours after being released from the SenDep room, Ryan was marched into an interrogation room. Just by looking at him, Davidson could tell that the SenDep had its desired effect. His eyes seemed hollow, and they focused on nothing in particular. His voice was monotonous and robotic. His attitude was gone. Instead, he did not argue. He barely spoke. His voice was quiet and withdrawn. He answered every question without argument, which was exactly why SenDep was used. It wasn’t strictly legal, and neither was tranquilizing Haywood to that degree, but Davidson needed answers and results and he was a determined man. He was also a man with a lot of money, and should any health regulators stumble upon the SenDep room, he could pay them off or charm them into “forgetting” about it.

“Do you know where you are?”

“North Ward Criminal Asylum.”

Ryan blinked. Davidson watched him. It seemed like he was having difficulty regaining normal functions. He tried to hide his smirk, but was sure Haywood wouldn’t pick up on it if he did. Sensory Deprivation was proven to be effective at making people susceptible to propaganda. Davidson tweaked it in order to create the perfect passive inmate – one who would answer all questions truthfully and not cause any trouble. It was the _very_ last resort. Eventually a personality would grow back, but more often than not, it wasn’t the one they went into the SenDep room with.

“Why are you here?”

“Multiple murder charges. I was caught during a heist.”

“Who was your primary mentor?”

“Doctor Gavin Free.”

Although Davidson originally threw Ryan into SenDep to sedate him and to punish him, he realised he could answer some questions he had about the relationship between him and Gavin. He could find out if his hunch was right all along (which he knew it would be) and it anything particularly disturbing was revealed – well – Ryan was on the precipice.

In extreme circumstances, when criminals in North Ward would have been placed on Death Row if it was not for the insanity plea, North Ward could be given permission to administer lethal injections to these patients if adequate evidence was provided. All he would need to put Haywood under, was some form of admission that he was playing games with Gavin. Hello good reputation, goodbye Haywood.

“How was your relationship with Dr Free?”

Ryan took a breath. “I liked Gavin. He was the only person here that treated me like a person and not a number. We got on.”

Davidson smiled, openly this time. This was going in the direction he wanted it to go in. He had the admin papers in his folder to take to court. The world could be rid of Haywood in the next week.

“Please elaborate on your relationship.”

“He listened to me and didn’t put me down. I listened to him. We understood each other.”

“Did you, at any point, use manipulation or mind games to get Dr Free to be on your side?”

“Yes.”

“Please elaborate.”

Another pause from Ryan. He couldn’t lie. He couldn’t think of a smart-mouth answer.

“I got him to let his guard down. He could explore with me. I introduced him to parts of his person that he never knew he had.”

That wasn’t exactly the answer Davidson had expected.

“I got him to trust me,” Ryan continued. “He gave me his all and I took it and twisted it in ways that we both enjoyed.”

Davidson felt an amount of bile rise in his throat. If he interpreted Haywood correctly, he never expected a confession of this nature. His next question was hard to say aloud.

“Did you have sex with Dr Free?”

The pause between the question and answer lasted far too long for Davidson’s liking.

“Yes.”

Davidson raised his hand to his head. This was bad news. This was very bad news. Either Haywood had controlled him to such an extent that he was comfortable with… _that_ , or worse…

“Did you have consensual sex with Dr Free?”

Davidson almost wanted the answer to be no. Not because he liked the idea of Gavin suffering in such a way, but because it would further his case. He would present the argument that Haywood had raped a member of staff and should therefore be put down and that would be the end of Haywood. He knew he ought to feel bad about feeling that way… but he didn’t.

“Yes.”

If anything, that answer was more difficult to deal with than the other. This meant that Gavin had allowed Haywood to do… _things_ to him, which meant that Gavin had broken all sorts of professional codes of conduct, as well as soil his own reputation, not to mention North Ward’s (if the word got out). But worst of all, it would give Haywood a chance to live.

Davidson would not let that happen. He had recorded evidence that Haywood had used mind games to control Gavin, had manipulated him to the point where they had sex –

An idea struck him.

He needed to talk to Gavin.

***

Gavin was visibly tired when he entered Davidson’s office a few days after the interrogation. He had half a mind to hand in his notice, to quit altogether and go back to England or find work with Geoff. But he realised that he wasn’t in the best frame of mind to make big decisions at that point in time. He was tired, emotional, shamed, confused.

“I’ve spoken to Haywood,” Davidson began, sitting across from Gavin, hands folded on the table. “He told me some interesting things.”

Gavin felt the heat in his cheeks. He knew where this was going. He knew that Ryan would have told him everything, because that was the point of SenDep. He couldn’t be mad at him, knowing what hell he’d been through. He probably would have done the same.

Gavin sighed.

“Listen,” Davidson said enthusiastically, his tone of voice entirely too upbeat for Gavin’s current mood, “I know how we can swing this. Okay, you had sex with Haywood a few times – I’m creeped out, but whatever – the point is I can still nail him on this. He admitted to using manipulation to get you to side with him – I’m sure you can see that now – he said that your sex was consensual, but how could it have been if you were manipulated?”

Gavin knew that there was some degree of manipulation in their interactions – but as far as he could tell, it was mainly during the more heated meetings – where Ryan would coax him into his subspace, tell him that he _wanted_ to be hurt and humiliated and in that mindset, Gavin _did_ want to be hurt and humiliated. But Ryan would pull him out again at the end of their session, and cuddle up to him and praise him. It was far from a conventional relationship, but it wasn’t entirely based on Ryan’s ability to get into people’s heads.

“I- I wanted to- I wanted to have sex with him, sir. It was consensual on both parts.”

“I don’t care,” Davidson said bluntly. “The point is, this is a solid gold argument. I’ve shown the evidence to the committee and all they need is the go-ahead from you and we can have Ryan put down at the end of the month” (his previous forecast of having him gone at the end of the week was a little optimistic).

“I like you, Gavin, and all you have to do is cry wolf this one time, and we can put this whole mess behind us. You can keep your job, you can take some time off sick to get your head together and we can forget that Haywood ever existed. Look at how tired and broken you look! Would you be in this state if Haywood wasn’t around? Absolutely not. He’s made you like this, Gavin, hasn’t he? You haven’t slept because of him. I’m right, aren’t I? Listen to me, Gavin. You can keep your reputation and your job and the truth doesn’t leave my lips and may God strike me down if it does. All you need to do is sign on that line, and we can put this all behind us. No more Haywood, no more sneaking around, no more sleepless nights. You can meet a nice girl and forget about all of this. Just sign on the line, Gavin. That’s all you need to so. Just one signature and everything will be okay again. That’s what you want, isn’t it? For all this to go away. It can. Sign the form.”

It wasn’t until the next day after Gavin had rested up a bit that he realised the severity of his actions. Ryan had a set execution date, and it was all because of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, i imagine that this isn't actually a thing that happens in real criminal asylums (putting people down), but this is fanFICTION, none of this is real, and i like making people's hearts hurt.   
> again, thank you all so much for your comments and kudos - this is a heavy thing to write but goddamn, i am having so much fun. thank you <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because who doesn't love a bit of mournful reflection?

Ryan never imagined that he’d be in a position where he could plan out his last seventy two hours alive. He’d always imagined that he’d go out in a blaze of glory somehow, or maybe by an unexpected prison shanking. But he never expected to have the time ticking down before him. Unfortunately for him, there wasn’t much for him to do except count down the hours.

He had been moved to a room that was obviously set aside for cases such as himself. From what he’d been told, five prisoners had been executed at North Ward since the policy came into play twenty years ago. The room was bare apart from a bed consisting of a mattress and a camping bed frame. Every two hours from 7am to 9pm, he was escorted to the bathroom, and was locked in securely for the rest of the time. He had mostly recovered from the sensory deprivation – he still felt a little numb, a little empty, but he didn’t feel as much of a hollow shell as before.

Apart from his bathroom breaks, there was nothing much to do. He’d had a few visitors. A lawyer had come to him to put his affairs in order (his brain would be donated to science to help further the study of mental illnesses, his body would be cremated and his ashes taken back to Georgia, where he’d grown up before the family move to Los Santos). Someone had come to him to ask what he wanted for his last supper (honestly, all he wanted was a large Big Mac meal with coke) and someone else had told him that if he wanted to make a final trip somewhere, he was to mention it to one of the security guards that were stationed outside of his door. He was allowed one visitor.

Ryan didn’t fear his impending death, but it was a little unnerving to just sit there and wait for it. But despite all this, he didn’t regret what he did with his life. He regretted getting caught, but he still felt no remorse for his actions. Maybe he was a sociopath, maybe he was just straight-up fucked up. He didn’t really have enough time to seek an answer to that question. But in reality, he was never going to live to a ripe old age anyway. I ought to feel scared, he thought to himself, but I don’t. He just accepted that his time was up early, probably the universes’ way of punishing him. He never really believed in karma, but in this instance, it made sense.

He remembered his first deliberate kill – it wasn’t a person, it was a bird that had been half-killed by a truck on the road. Ten year old Ryan was told to go and put the poor thing out of its misery. He remembered feeling bad that he didn’t feel upset about what he had to do, and he distinctly remembered the sound of crunching when he stamped on the bird. He remembered the buzz he got from it, and how he felt as if he ought to feel bad.

He never actively sought out opportunities to kill after that incident, at least for a few years, but he learned to feign disgust and sadness when he was told to “put that racoon out front out of its misery”, or when he went hunting, when he had to wring the neck of the bird that he’d clipped. Thinking back, that’s probably where his preference for choking and neck-snapping came from.

He became increasingly violent in his late teens and early twenties, as a result of his drug-taking and his parents’ divorce. He stayed with his mom, who left Georgia for the bright lights of Los Santos, being too poor to afford a place of his own. His mom, upon discovering his pot use, never looked at Ryan the same again, but she would never turn her own son away. When Ryan went to visit his dad a few months after the initial break up, he was refused entry into the house. During that time, Ryan’s dad had become a born-again Christian and had been told that his son had Satan’s evil within him, which he immediately believed upon finding a nearly-empty bag of pot that Ryan thought he’d hidden in his old bedroom. Ryan was told all this by his father, who didn’t open the door but shouted through the letterbox. He returned to his mother’s arms, which were always wide open, but they never felt as warm or as comforting as they did when he was ten. She never admitted it, but Ryan’s mom was disappointed with how he turned out. He had a weekend job at a grocery store (which he didn’t keep for very long – he was fired for lashing out at multiple customers). Ryan would smoke dope in his room, and his mom would pretend he wasn’t, and afterwards, he’d pretend he hadn’t. It wasn’t healthy, but it was what he had.

Ryan’s dad died when Ryan was twenty five. He begrudgingly agreed to go to the funeral. There, he met his dad’s new family – he’d remarried and taken on three step-children – who were all perfectly nice Bible-thumping homophobes and therefore a perfect fit for his father. It was at the funeral too, where he was told that his entire inheritance that he’d been told he’d get from the day he understood the concept of death had been split between the new family, meaning that Ryan and his mother were left with nothing. It wasn’t a lot – it was a house and small farm, some semi-precious valuables and a little nest egg, but Ryan had been planning to use it to buy his mother a better place to live as well as buying the flat off her. It was money that he was going to use to better himself (in some way), and that stuck up sonofabitch had denied his right to that. After the funeral party had gone, he drank a bottle of vodka, went to his father’s grave and broke his foot trying to kick the headstone down. He was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, and was charged with vandalism. After that day he decided to go by his middle name and mother’s maiden name, as opposed to his first name and father’s name – to truly distance himself from his father, and to start a new life – but not a clean one.

For the next few years, Ryan was in and out of various jobs, mostly poorly-paid weekend jobs, and he was nearly always fired for being aggressive. But he managed to scrape enough together to pay his mother the rent she deserved, and one day, after saving for years, surprised her with a condo down at Vespucci Beach. It was the first time for many a year that she looked genuinely pleased with something he’d done, and it was a look he’d never forget. He smiled, thinking back at it.

It was when his mother was run down by a drunk driver a year later that he became a wanted man. Blinded by grief, he became determined to find the man that killed her. He cut out the drink and the drugs – he wanted to be stone cold sober for the moment he met his mom’s killer. It was a hit and run, so the police just treated it as a tragedy, but Ryan found the CCTV, tracked down the number plate to its owner, a washed out bum out in Sandy Shores, crept into his trailed at night and snapped the fucker’s neck. It was his first murder and one of the most satisfying ones he’d committed. Thinking about it, he was lucky that the guy wasn’t really missed, because if it had been someone of high profile, he would be the number one suspect on the LSPD’s list. A few weeks after the murder, he sold up the flat and the condo and took to the road in a second hand van. It wasn’t long before the killing became a hobby after that – he’d stay for weeks at a time in some places, renting bedsits or cheap hotels, and when he left somewhere, he’d change his licence plate with crafty use of duct tape.

He met interesting people along the way, mostly when he first started killing. He was caught dumping a body by someone a few months into his across-state roadtrip, thankfully the person who ran into him was willing to help and eventually, started paying Ryan for his services. Word got around, and he eventually built up an underground network of contacts who needed a gunman, an assassin, a getaway driver – the job didn’t matter, Ryan could do it all. It was how he eventually returned to Los Santos, and how he met Geoff. Naturally, due to the travel aspect of his life, he became a drug dealer too, working his way up the ladder to a fairly respectable position.

He left a trail of bodies behind him but no one connected the dots until he returned to Los Santos, getting caught on a simply bank robbery. He’d been in Los Santos for a few months prior to his arrest. It was a painful place to be, and he wouldn’t have stuck around for that long if it hadn’t been for Geoff and the jobs he would be called up for.

And now here he was, in an empty cell, waiting for death.

***

Ryan had a hard time getting Davidson to allow his one visitor to be Gavin. Eventually, Davidson just gave in to shut Ryan up. Davidson was concerned about Gavin’s wellbeing if he was around Ryan again, but at the end of the day, Ryan wouldn’t be around for much longer, and he could afford for Gavin to have a few extra sick days.

Ryan was glad he was able to get Gavin to visit him though. He’d never imagined himself as the type to cuddle, but here he was, lying on his bed, Gavin lying next to him, wrapped around him. Ryan had one arm behind his head, the other wrapped around Gavin. Gavin had his arms wrapped around Ryan’s torso.

Gavin tried not to cry.

Ryan, for the first time, felt sad that he was about to die. He’d never known warmth like this. He’d never felt this at peace. He didn’t want it to end.

For a while, they lay in silence, listening to each other’s breathing, feeling each other’s heartbeats. It was peace that Ryan had never known. He almost didn’t want to break the silence.

“I think this is the first time we’ve ever been on a bed together without being naked.” Ryan said, laughing lowly. Gavin snorted. He nuzzled up closer to Ryan. He was warm and alive.

“I’m glad I met you, Ryan,” Gavin said quietly. “I wish it hadn’t ended like this and I wish it was under different circumstances. But I’m still glad.”

“Mm. Me too,” Ryan said, kissing Gavin’s forehead. “This situation would be desperately bleak without you here. As opposed to considerably bleak.”

There was another length of silence.

“Will you be there?” Ryan asked. He was told by Davidson that there would be witnesses to his death. The way Davidson said it made it sound like a sought-after ticketed event. He wanted Gavin to be there, for him to be the last thing Ryan would see. But he didn’t want to put Gavin through that hurt. He felt Gavin nod against his chest. He held Gavin closer to him.

Gavin felt sick thinking about that moment the curtain would open and he’d be sat there with a bunch of strangers, and Ryan would be strapped to the gurney, cannulas in his arms, Davidson and his army of crooks all lined up, syringes in hand. He could practically _see_ the shit-eating grin on Davidson’s face, and he could imagine him rolling his eyes as Ryan made his final statement. And then ten minutes later… it would be over.

“Don’t be sad, Gav,” Ryan said, voice noticeably downbeat. “We weren’t meant to be. I mean, we were meant to be, I’m pretty sure, I just don’t think it was destined to last long. I don’t want you to be sad. I’m not that sad. I’ll miss you, but that’s the only downer really.”

It was little comfort, but Gavin savoured every word that Ryan spoke. He made sure to remember every heartbeat.

“Ry?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you. I’m sorry it had to end this way. I wish we’d met another way.”

“I feel the same Gavin… I feel the same.”

There was silence after that for another few minutes, but it wasn’t awkward. They both let their confessions hang in the air, both of them feeling relieved once they’d said it. It was bittersweet.

“So are you going to make a trip tomorrow?”

Ryan shrugged with one shoulder. “I might do. I might go to see my mom’s grave. I’ve not put flowers down for a while. Do you think they’d let me do that?”

Gavin was almost too wrapped up in his grief to notice what Ryan had just said.

If Ryan was going to go and visit his mom, then there was a chance.

There was a way out of it.

“I think they’d absolutely let you do that,” Gavin said, trying to hide the optimism in his voice, though he was sure that Ryan would be able to feel his increased heart rate. “I – I would come with you if you like. I’d be able to convince Davidson that you’d lose control without me,” Gavin said chuckling a little.

Ryan laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will go. And I’d like you to come with me. I need to go and tell my mom to expect me – tell her to put the kettle on.”

Not if I can help it, Gavin thought to himself.

***

After a long hour negotiating, Gavin managed to convince Davidson to let him come with Ryan on his “last” trip. He was told to be there at 9am sharp, and that the bus would be leaving without him if he wasn’t there. There would be himself and Ryan, as well as the driver, Davidson and another security guard. Ryan was pleased by the news, and Gavin was ecstatic, but was sure not to let it show.

 That night, he met with Geoff and the plan was put in place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooOOOOOOoooo. What will happen next? Who knows. I don't even know. It depends on how I feel! Thought I'd put this chapter up before I go on holiday, meaning that it's not ages between updates and so I can have time to think about where to take this. And what to do. Who will live and who will die? oHohohoh. We simply don't know.  
> Thank you again for all the love, you are all too kind! Feedback and kudoses are so greatly appreciated, you don't even know <3


	11. Update

Hi all -  
You may have noticed that I haven't updated for a while. Unlike my other unfinished fic American Trash, I will absolutely finish this fic - eventually. Life has just been getting in the way at the moment.  
I've been working my ass off to simultaneously save up money and pay off debts, and because of this I've been drained and exhausted and sick for the past few weeks. On top of that, my best friends mum, who was a very very close family friend passed away three weeks ago, so I've been busy dealing with that and helping my bff through this awful time.  
I could say that now I'm pretty much done with work I can start this up again, but I move to university next week so writing probably won't be on the forefront of my mind then! So it could be a while until the next chapter. Seeing as I post this on here rather than tumblr, I thought it would be better to post my explanation here for you people who are interested in it! I'll delete this update when I eventually post the next chapter.  
Thank you for understanding, and don't hate me too much,  
L <3


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